2 weeks Ago By Simply Wall St.
Over the past year, many ( ) insiders sold a significant stake in the company which may have piqued investors' interest. When evaluating insider transactions, knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more beneficial than knowing whether they are selling, as the latter can be open to many interpretations. However, shareholders should take a deeper look if several insiders are selling stock over a specific time period.
While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. The Senior VP, Katherine Adams, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$23m worth of shares at a price of US$189 each.
That means that even when the share price was below the current price of US$217, an insider wanted to cash in some shares. We generally consider it a negative if insiders have been selling, especially if they did so below the current price, because it implies that they considered a lower price to be reasonable. Please do note, however, that sellers may have a variety of reasons for selling, so we don't know for sure what they think of the stock price.
We note that the biggest single sale was only 30% of Katherine Adams's holding. Insiders in Apple didn't buy any shares in the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below.
By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! For those who like to find this Over the last three months, we've seen significant insider selling at Apple. In total, insiders sold US$24m worth of shares in that time, and we didn't record any purchases whatsoever. Overall this makes us a bit cautious, but it's not the be all and end all.
For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. It's great to see that Apple insiders own 0.
06% of the company, worth about US$2.0b. This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders.
Insiders sold stock recently, but they haven't been buying. And even if we look at the last year, we didn't see any purchases. But it is good to see that Apple is growing earnings.
It is good to see high insider ownership, but the insider selling leaves us cautious. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. Case in point: We've spotted you should be aware of.
But note: . So take a peek at this.
